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Etymology data from Wiktionary via Wiktextract (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese character data from the 說文解字, the Taiwan MOE 國語辭典簡編本 (CC BY-ND 3.0 TW) and HSK/TOCFL lists.

Explanations are written by a local model (gemma4) and only published after a verification pass against the cited sources. How it works.

Chinese

華

huá
to blossom; to come into flower; to flower (of plants)
  • Pictogram
  • HSK 3
  • radical 艸
  • 12 strokes

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
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Origin

Etymology 1

Pictogram (象形); this was the original form of 花 (OC *hʷraː, “flower”). In the bronze inscription form, the top part of the glyph resembles flowers of a plant, and the bottom part (于) resembles its stalk and leaves. Also phono-semantic (形聲 /形声), with 于 (OC *ɢʷa) functioning as the phonetic part. In the seal script, 艸 (“grass; plant”) was added as a semantic component.

華 (𦻏) and 𠌶 were initially the same character, but they were erroneously split in Shuowen into two entries.

Cognate with 花 (OC *hʷraː, “flower”) — to be in flower (Schuessler, 2007).

Etymology 3

See 花 (huā).

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • partChinese草 “herbaceous plant; herb; weed; wort; grass; forb”
    • meaningChinese艸 “grass”
    • soundChinese早 “early; in advance; soon”
      • meaningChinese日 “Sun”
      • soundChinese棗 “jujube; Chinese date”
      • ideaChinese甲 “shell; carapace”
  • partChinese一 “one”
  • partChinese十 “ten”

Meanings

character
  1. to blossom; to come into flower; to flower (of plants)
  2. radiance; brilliance; splendour; lustre
  3. a coloured halo around the sun or moon
  4. ornate; magnificent; gorgeous; resplendent; splendid
  5. colourful; decorated; painted (esp. of carvings, architecture, ornaments)
  6. literary grace; elegance; polish; talent (in writing)

Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字

華：榮也。从艸从𠌶。凡華之屬皆从華。

Xu Shen, c. 100 CE — the first analytical dictionary of Chinese characters.

國語辭典 definitions

  1. →華山
  2. 姓。

© Ministry of Education, Taiwan — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW, shown unaltered.

How 華 was written 字形演變

  1. 華 in Qin slips script
    Qin slips
    秦系簡牘
    Qin
  2. 華 in Small seal script
    Small seal
    說文小篆
    Shuowen, c. 100 CE
  3. 華 in Regular script
    Regular
    楷書
    since c. 200 CE

Historical forms collected by the legacy etymfun dataset; most characters have several attested variants.

Sources

  • Structural decomposition (chaizi) — See upstream
  • Historical glyph forms (zdic.net 字形演变) — Rights unverified
  • HSK / TOCFL word lists — Facts (levels)
  • 教育部《國語辭典簡編本》 (Taiwan MOE) — CC BY-ND 3.0 TW
  • 說文解字 Shuowen Jiezi (Xu Shen, c. 100 CE) — Public domain
  • Wiktionary (via Wiktextract / kaikki.org) — CC BY-SA 4.0
  • Wiktionary: 華